Hegang City Government Sabotages Implementation of Law--Suspends Citizen Identification Cards

The Hegang City government in Heilongjiang Province severely persecutes Falun Gong practitioners. By the end of 2008, about twenty Falun Gong practitioners had been persecuted to death, many were paralysed due to torture, over a dozen were dismissed from their jobs, and several became homeless due to the persecution. In order to prevent practitioners from going to other places, the local government suspended, detained, and even stopped the processing of their identification cards on a large scale.

When some practitioners went to the local police station to apply for their personal identification cards, the police said, "We have received orders saying that we should not issue personal IDs unless we have approval from the 610 Office¹ or the Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs or the leaders of the police station." For those practitioners whose IDs were already approved, the police station would not give them their IDs, claiming that they had been lost, or that the leaders had ordered them not to give those practitioners their IDs. If the practitioners wanted to use their ID, for example to withdraw money from their bank, the police station had to arrange for an officer to accompany the practitioner to the bank. After using the ID to withdraw money, the officer would take the ID back and suspend it again.

When other practitioners went to the police station to apply for an ID or asked the police to give them their ID, the police not only refused to issue IDs, they also berated, cursed, and threatened or drove them away, saying, "You can appeal wherever you want. We are not afraid." They even detained practitioners in the police station for several hours or ransacked their homes.

In China, if a person does not have a personal ID, he/she will not be able to find a job or get a business licence or a credit card. Without a personal ID, the person will not be able to cash a check or stay in a hotel, which causes a lot of inconvenience. Sheer survival is severely jeopardized, especially for those practitioners who have been dismissed from their jobs. This local government policy has had a very negative affect, making life especially difficult of kindhearted practitioners and their families. Some local governments have also threatened to dismiss practitioners from their jobs. From July 1999 to the present, in Hegeng City alone, over one hundred practitioners have been fired. Grounds for dismissing them was that they didn't write a guarantee statement promising not to go to Beijing to appeal, or that they had already gone to Beijing to appeal, etc.

According to incomplete statistics, more than several dozen practitioners in Hegang District have been persecuted and dismissed from their jobs. The following is a partial list:

From Xing'an Mine: Zhao Jingfu, Ma Yingquan, Wang Shusen, Gong Guidong; Huang Xiuying (Food Supplies Bureau); Li Xiaofeng (Xing'an District local government); Chen Yanmei (Party School); Chen Fengli (Nanshan Mining); Dai Yulan (City Brew House); Wu Meiyan (No. 13 Factory)

From Jianshe Bank: Di Huibin, Xu Jiting, Li Qingwen, Zhao Fenghui, and Yu Ruisheng (he was forced to buy out his years of work experience as job seniority.); Liu Qingfu (No. 21 Middle School); Huang Shisheng (Measurement Supervision Bureau); Chang Yuhua (Shuyuan Township Government)

Witihout a known work unit: Yang Yongying, Zhang Jingliang, Guo Xingguo.

More than a hundred practitioners in Hegang City have also been sentenced to forced labour and detained. Most of them had to pay 2000 to 6000 yuan² when they were released, as bail. That does not include fees extorted from their families. Most of the money has not been returned. When practitioners requested the return of their money, they were threatened and verbally abused. For instance, Director Sheng of Hedong Branch Police Station once said in a very rude tone, "Do you know what place this is? How dare you come here to ask for your money back." While speaking, he tore the receipt for the note (a record of the money they owed).

Hegang City government brutally persecutes practitioners, and all of that is directly related to former local city Party Secretary Zhang Xingfu. When Zhang Xingfu was the city's Party Secretary, he confiscated people's money and property, selling and buying official positions, robbing people, and even clearly marked the amount of how much they would take. This person's moral level is very low. He misused his power, sexually abused women, and had a very bad reputation in Hegang City. Zhang Xingfu and others, who participated in the persecution, consider Falun Gong practitioners as less than human. From 2001 to 2002, when the police found a few letters that had not been mailed yet in a practitioner's home, Zhang Xingfu ordered that the practitioner be dismissed from his job and be sent to prison for four years. In April 2002, Zhang Xingfu issued an order for over 600 hundred practitioners to be arrested, sentenced to forced labour, or sent to prison. Their homes were also ransacked.

In 2008, Nanshan District Court, Xing'an District Court, and City Intermediate Court wrongly sentenced practitioners Zhao Fuqiang, Ji Fangrong, Qi Xinhua, and others.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/3/7/196690.html